He’s lost his ticket, and from behind the ticket window’s white bars, the station agent refuses to sell him another, saying there’s no change in the drawer. From a station bench, he looks at the immense, dry countryside that opens out in all directions. He crosses his legs and unfolds the pages of the newspaper in search of articles that will make the time pass faster. Night spreads across the sky, and far away, above the black line beyond which the tracks disappear, a yellow light announces the next train. Gruner stands up. The newspaper hangs from his hand like an obsolete weapon. In the ticket window he discerns a smile that, half hidden behind the bars, is directed exclusively at him. A skinny dog that was sleeping now stands up, attentive. Gruner moves toward the window, confident in the hospitality of country people, in masculine camaraderie, in the goodwill that awakens in men when you handle them well. He is going to say, Please, how hard can it be? You know there’s no more time to find change. And if the man refuses, he’s going to ask about other options: Surely, sir, I could buy the ticket aboard the train, or, when I arrive, I could buy it at the terminal’s ticket office. Make me an IOU, give me a piece of paper that says I have to pay for the ticket later.
But when he reaches the window, when the train’s lights lengthen the shadows and the whistle is loud and intrusive, Gruner discovers that no one is there behind the bars, there’s only a tall chair and a table overflowing with unstamped slips, future tickets to various destinations. As he watches the train barrel into the station, Gruner also sees that off to one side of the tracks, in the field, the still-smiling man is signaling to the conductor that he doesn’t have to stop, since no one has bought a ticket. Then, as the sound of the massive machine moves away, the dog lies down again and the station’s only lamp blinks for a few seconds, then goes out entirely. The now crumpled newspaper comes to rest again on Gruner’s lap, and he reaches no conclusion that would send him off in search of that wretch who has refused him the capital’s happy civilization.
Everything is still and silent. Even Gruner, sitting at one end of a bench with the cool night seeping in through his clothes, stays motionless and breathes calmly. A shadow that he doesn’t see moves between posts and plaza benches and reveals itself as the man from the ticket window. Now unsmiling, he sits at the other end of the bench and puts a mug full of steaming liquid down next to him. He pushes it until it’s a few inches from Gruner. He clears his throat and looks at the wide black countryside that stretches out before them. As the steam from the mug awakens Gruner’s appetite, he focuses on resistance. He thinks that in the end, he will get to the capital somehow and he’ll report what has happened. But his hand moves toward the mug of its own accord, and the heat between his fingers distracts him. “There’s more where that came from,” says the man, and then Gruner—but no, Gruner wouldn’t have done that. Gruner’s hands take the warm vessel and raise it to his mouth, where a miraculous medicine reanimates his body. With the last sip he understands that, if this were a war, that wretch would already have won two battles. Victorious, the man stands, picks up the empty mug, and walks away.
The dog is still curled up, its snout hidden between its stomach and hind legs, and although Gruner has called to him several times, the dog ignores him. It occurs to Gruner that it was the dog’s food in the mug, and he worriedly wonders how long that dog has been here. Whether there had been a time when the dog had also wanted to travel from one place to another, as he himself had wanted to do that very afternoon. He has the notion that the dogs of the world are the result of men who have failed in their attempted journeys. Men nourished and retained with nothing but steaming broth, men whose hair grows long and whose ears droop and whose tails lengthen, a feeling of terror and cold inciting them to stay silent, curled up under some train-station bench, contemplating the failures of the newcomer who is just like them only still has hope, staunchly awaiting the opportunity of a voyage.